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Last month the Mayor pledged £7,500 to the Big Park Sleepover, a crowdfunded community project in Brixton providing an overnight camping mini-festival for inner city kids and their families.

What is your project, why is it important and how will it help people in your area?

100 families will get the chance to camp out in Lambeth’s Myatt’s Fields, a beautiful Victorian park nestled amongst high rise estates including Angell Town. The event, now in its fourth year, boasts bush craft workshops, camp fires, professional storytellers and even a show from a charity circus, Flying Seagull Project.

With local Army cadets volunteering to provide the security and Lambeth GoodGym pledging their time the Sleepover is a real community event.

Why, when and how did people pledge to you?

The Sleepover is a really good way of bringing people together across communities. Many of the families here feel isolated, they have really challenging lives, don’t have access to outside space. We've been asking for pledges to give them a one night holiday and connect them with nature and the community.

Morgane Sardet, a Brixton resident, who went to the Big Park Sleepover with her three children in 2012 and 2013, praised the event and its organisers: “Being able to get together with local people brings you closer, and this is important for our community and our children, here in Brixton and beyond,” she said.

It sounds simple but this event gives the whole area a boost. People make friends and start using the park more often. The kids love it, when the sun starts to go down and the camp fire goes up, you can feel the excitement in the air. For some this is their first time camping out in nature under the stars.

The project was also supported by local music venue the Dogstar, who said: “The Dogstar Brixton is more than proud to support the community in which it thrives, and which helped make the venue what it is today.”

Are there any other ways people can meet you face-to-face or help you?

On Tuesday 26th July our crowdfunding campaign achieved its full target thanks to a final pledge of £5,000 from the property developer CLS Holdings. The interest in our campaign has been amazing and inspiring. For example South West London Army Cadets have helped us with tents and security.

We are now hoping to hold more park sleepovers across London so any organisations who can help fund this at an even bigger, better scale, please get in touch via [email protected]